Roman Empire Research Paper

4/22/09
History 103
Prof. Elliot
The rise and fall of the Roman Empire Many have heard the history of one of the greatest empires of all time. The Roman Empire had paved the path that the American founding fathers looked to for inspiration and wisdom from learning from the mistakes of historical leaders to create the government we are today. In researching, many wonder how exactly did the empire fail? It looked like the perfect and strongest form of government to the outside nations, and yet it failed still and became a lesson to others and just another page in a history book. Many historians have researched the military and the government of the Roman Empire and it is yet still difficult to find if there was an exact moment that the roman…show more content…
Once the dictatorships or emperors started taking control and ruling Rome, many things started changing drastically. Before, when the Republic was the main form of government, it was a government created to allow the citizens of Rome to have a say in how things should be ruled and believed that decisions should be made by a group of educated people who knew what would be best for the people of Rome. In the book The Fall of Rome, the author, R.A. Laffety discussed how once Rome became an Empire, it was only a matter of time until Rome itself would only be history. He acknowledged that once Rome became an Empire, the emperor changed all the rules. The emperor now had “right to declare war, ratify treaties, negotiate with foreign leaders, and chose their own successor” (Laffery, The Fall of Rome). Since the republic was the form of government that was ruled by elected citizens (senate, assemblies, etc..) once the empire emerged, the emperor became a supreme ruler that took over the power that the senate and assemblies once held and by the 3rd century, the senate had little to no power and very little influence. Thankfully, the Empire actually did see that they could gain peace for a short while with good emperors, one that had the…show more content…
18 Apr. 2009 .
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